Curating the “best” portions of a video or multiple videos is something that is performed manually by human curators, and is therefore very expensive when large amounts of video are involved. For example, television channel sports shows may put together what they think are the “best” fifteen minutes of football video; this content is manually selected and edited in a professional studio. Narrated shows, sometimes accompanied by music, are another common example in which a popular event, such as a major sports event, is professionally produced (somewhat like a documentary) for mass consumption by a large viewing audience.
However, manual video curation is too time consuming and expensive to create large amounts of highlight videos, such as to cater to the various tastes and specifications of many individual users. For example, one user may want a fifteen sports highlight video that emphasizes his or her favorite sport, such as football, but not one that includes soccer. Another user may desire a video that shows the “best” fifty-three minutes of a popular movie.